The Woobie Cleanup

Found this on the page for Spider-Man 3:

Jerkass Woobie: To an extent, Eddie Brock. While he was a pretty sleazy guy and an entitled Stalker with a Crush towards Gwen, the way he begged Peter not to expose him as a fraud did seem genuine. He seemed just as genuinely crushed when he saw Gwen on Peter's arm later, and he's genuinely choking up when he prays to God to kill Peter after all this. And while Eddie had clearly been trying to muscle Peter out of a job, he only faked his photo of black suit Spider-Man because Peter (while in the black suit) sabotaged him by destroying his camera, with which he had gotten a legit picture. Eddie Brock wasn't a good person by any means, but the way Peter ruthlessly dealt with him under the symbiote's influence turned Eddie into a bigger problem than he otherwise would have been. After Eddie becomes Venom and asks if Peter remembered what he did to him, the way Eddie says it, again, comes off like he's genuinely holding back tears. Doesn't excuse him trying to kill both Peter and Mary Jane though.

Not only was Venom recently approved as a CM, something Woobies can never be, but all of the things mentioned aren’t sympathetic as they are all his own fault and near the end he straight up admits he likes being bad as “it makes him happy.”

Edited by Evanpotter09 on Sep 15th 2023 at 9:43:58 AM

Er, I'm pretty sure the actual rule is "they're both audience reactions and are allowed to contradict". A CM designation is not some binding force that excludes any other audience reactions.

IDK if Brock himself is a woobie, mind. He probably isn't.

Complete Monster outright says that a character being listed as The Woobie and such doesn't negate it inherently.

Weird, I remembered reading something years ago that said no CM’s could be Woobies.

"An example which gets compassion or laughter or other normally incompatible audience responses will require extra scrutiny, though."

From SoYouWantTo.Write A Complete Monster:

"Complete Monsters are not characters that the audience should feel sorry for. While these characters can and will likely turn other characters into this trope, if your character tries to pass themselves off as this trope, you need to make it clear that their past and/or motivations do not justify the suffering they are inflicting onto others."

I feel like the "pass themselves off as this trope" makes The Woobie-factor IUEO 99% of the time. Whether or not the audience agrees with that seems to depend on them suffering a particularly horrible fate like Facilier being Dragged Off to Hell or Bill Cipher being erased from existence (the latter of which I've heard/seen some people mention feeling a tiny bit bad for). In practice though it's exceedingly rare from what I can tell and neither of those examples are Jerkass Woobies through and through.

Edited by Coachpill on Sep 15th 2023 at 6:22:42 AM

That's not a rule though, that page has nothing to do with the actual Complete Monster cleanup and if anything has come under scrutiny lately

I wasn't talking about cleanup; I think The Woobie and CM being combined is possible, just hard to come by.

Asking this more out of curiosity than anything, but have there actually been talks about the validity of the SYWT page?

Yeah it’s pretty much universal agreed that the SYWT page is a gigantic mess at best.

I still do not support cm/woobie crossovers.